I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review and this is the Book Review

Podcast.

On this episode, Sarah Lyle once again has the chair and she's in conversation with the novelist

Comte Toybee.

Let's turn to that now.

Hi, I'm Sarah Lyle with the New York Times Book Review Podcast. I'm delighted to have here in the studio the Irish writer calm Tobin.

He's a novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, journalist, and the author of numerous works of non-fiction.

He teaches literature, among other things, at Columbia University, and he's here to talk about his new book, Long Island.

It's his 11th novel.

Long Island is a sequel to Brooklyn published in 2009.

That book told the story of Eilish Lacy,

a young Irish woman who comes to America

and eventually finds love with Tony,

a man from an Italian family. This new book picks up 25 years later with Eilish

married to Tony and living on Long Island with their two children. So the

first question is the simplest one.

Tell us briefly about Long Island.

What is it about?

It's 25 years after Brooklyn, so it's got to be around 1976.

And the family has moved out from the city to a Greenfield site where they have built four houses.

So that Aelich is married to Tony, they have one house, Tony's two brothers and their wives have two other houses, and Tony's parents have the other house.

So they're in an enclave in Lindenhurst in Long Island, and she has two children. and it is in a way a perfect suburban life except of course you notice slowly that the family is all Italian they behave like Italians

...